Reflections
by The Maiden in Pink
Summary: Hollywood "It Girl" Ginger Grant thinks back on the discovery of the one thing in life that eluded her while marooned on a tiny island.


I stood in the dark, in the center of our hut, our makeshift home. Funny, four months ago the thought of _missing_ the crude little place when I left it seemed less than a joke. I wanted to scream when I realized that I would actually have to _live _here for who knows how long.

But of course, I could never have pictured that I would be leaving it the way I was going to.

I wrapped my arms tighter around myself when I saw an unwanted vision of the little bamboo walls, the leafy roof violently ripping apart into flaming scraps... Presently, it was black and still; the hut was asleep, sitting at peace in the dark. I had to miss it now, even as I stood inside it, while I still could... The lump in my throat throbbed.

Through my tears, I watched my fingers tracing my shadowy makeshift bed, and I thought of the spoiled girl of four months ago who didn't appreciate it, when there were others who washed up on islands with nothing, and we were fortunate enough to still have everything we had brought. With a bitter sob, I realized that now I was grateful that I was even alive at all.

Slowly, unsteadily, I righted myself. The hut was already gone, dark and at peace. I was still alive. I had had my final cry, my final mourning, alone in the shadows. Now I wanted to spend every moment until my last amongst the beauty outside, and with my friends.

At the doorway of the hut, hiccuping softly with my sobs still dying away, I turned to look one last time. Then I stepped out, and as I did I stepped from my life for the past four months and into limbo. A short space between then and the end, a short time in which to wait for death's arrival.

But at least mine was a _stunning_ limbo, almost heavenly in itself. If there was anything about the entire situation that could be called a "bright side," it was that the island on which we were marooned and now doomed was so extraordinarily lovely, unmarred by human hands, the jungles still lush and deep with mystery.

I had never before known a beauty that I not only saw with my eyes, but _felt_ reverberating all through me the way this place did.

The sun-dappled green of the palm leaves swaying lightly in the tropical-scented breeze... cliché, I had thought before, but now I really knew why people thought of the tropics that way. The silence of the beach, where the sand was warm beneath your feet as you look out over the endless ocean, and the sensation the water brings when it rolls up gently and kisses your ankles with faintly bubbling blue foam...

I inhaled deeply, trying to bring the memory of that peace into myself now, as I walked beneath the watching stars, stars I had never in my life seen before at night even though this was the very same sky I had always had above me. When I had first seen it at night here on the island, I had remarked how it looked like a black evening dress just awash in glittering, flawless diamonds, and Mrs. Howell had enthusiastically agreed.

I felt a watery smile break out when I thought of my friends. Mrs. Howell had enthusiastically agreed with me, but the Skipper had said that he and Gilligan saw the night sky filled with stars all the time out at sea, and hadn't seen it that way before. I laughed when I remembered what Gilligan had said then. "That's 'cause only a girl would turn the _sky_ into girl stuff!"

The Skipper and Mr. Howell had snorted with snickers, and Mrs. Howell and I rolled our eyes.

Yes, my friends... there was another bend in the walk of life that I could have never seen coming when I first boarded the _Minnow_. I could have never guessed that the other four passengers- not to mention the crew!- would have become dearer to me than many of my friends back home.

My fellow castaways had become my family here, and if we weren't going to die in the morning they would have remained like family even off the island, too.

I felt that very certainly as I looked over our campsite. The torches we had erected around it were not burning at the moment, but even without their warm glow I could still see the big, messy shape of our hut, and in front of it, the rectangle of our outdoor dining table, surrounded by the seven silhouettes of our bench seats.

How many times we had sat there together and chatted while we ate! It had been jarring at first for me, who was used to hustling about and jet-setting, to sit down to three meals a day, always with the same people lining the table.

But it had grown into comfortable routine, and I had thought that if I had ever been able to return to land, those meals would have been amongst what I missed the most about our castaway life. Even though I was pretty tired of fish, coconut and banana, in particular. Not crab or lobster, though- I could never tire of those.

Then I remembered to be grateful that for the food that we had had, even if there wasn't a whole lot of variety- and I was also grateful for Mary Ann. She would always try to take the bananas and berries or fish or whatever it might have been and make actual dishes out of them. Courtesy of a sack of flour from the _Minnow _and syrupy sap from inside some trees, she was able to make treats, too, like coconut or banana cream pies.

_Those _were absolutely _marvelous_... however, I was secretly al-most pleased that there was only one flour sack, because if we had had more I would have wanted Mary Ann to make pies every day, and then that would have been the end of my figure.

Heck, one time I scolded her after we had all finished a pie and she surprised us by bringing out an extra one. That was Mary Ann for you. She was always thinking of how to make everyone happy, always asking to help or helping without being asked, fussing over fixing meals or mending clothes... when I thought of it, I realized that she was perhaps the heart of the reason why we got along as well as we did on the island.

It may have seemed that Mary Ann Summers was just some little hick girl, but in actuality she had what my massage therapist would have called a "vital essence," that is, to say, vital to mankind: unselfish, warm, capable, caring.

I could just tell by her honest nature that she had been this way all of her life, not just on the island, and, with a bittersweet ache, I was so glad for her, that she could pass over contented with herself. I smiled, to try to cancel another lump forming in throat, my heart swelling painfully with a fierce, aching pride for all of my friends. I sent out a silent prayer of thanks for having been blessed enough to be marooned on an island with them, not anyone else.

I could see the group now, a snapshot in time of us sitting in a circle on the beach, listening to the radio on that first day. Mrs. Howell sitting daintily beside Mr. Howell, the Skipper barking at Gilligan to get up from the big rock they were sitting on and go get fish, the Professor sitting on the sand so everyone else could sit on something, Mary Ann on a log twiddling with a twig, and beside her, with a soaked dress hem, me.

"_You..." _said a small, sudden voice. _"__How _**_about _**_you? Are __**you**__going to pass over content?"_

I didn't have an answer right away. Being on this island, removed from my career and everything else that was familiar, it was almost as if I had been separated from myself, and this separate me on the island, while I didn't think had changed all that much, could now see _myself _more clearly.

And next to my friends, I realized that I didn't care for what I saw.

Appearances can be so deceiving. Most people would say, at first impression, "No way, some country-girl general store clerk has more reason to die content than a movie star? Please! Even if she wasn't a big celebrity, at least she was actually accomplishing things, on her way, fulfilling her dream!"

That seemed true. But thinking of something beyond, something deeper, when I put myself next to Mary Ann, for instance, and the way she touched lives, I felt that the way that the way _I _did was so petty and superficial. Even beside the Howells, who were, yes, rich, and very much so, but for all of their pomp and bluster, they had done things with their money that benefited society, and even if it hadn't been much, they always had all the options right with them to do even greater things for society.

All I had done was go from a selfish brat in childhood to showing up to be filmed as part of artificial representations of life. How stupid was that? How stupid was I? All I had done was waste time.

My mind was so far removed from the world around me that I jumped quite a bit when I heard crunchy sand footsteps, normally a quiet sound that seemed loud and clear in the utter silence. I raised my head from hands to see the figure approaching through the dark. A man, too wide to be Gilligan, too narrow to be the Skipper, too swift to be Mr. Howell. The Professor.

I straightened my posture slightly. I hadn't seen him all night.

Even just a simple 'hi' from him was reassuring, soothing.

"Oh, hi," I replied softly.

"Am I intruding?"

His tone was quiet and warm. I looked at him. His smile matched. Feeling for him coursed through me, tightening in my chest. "Oh, no." I could have added, "_No_, _Professor_, _actually_, _seeing_ _you_ _sit_ _down_ _beside_ _me_ _like_ _this_ _is_ _the_ _very_ _sight_ _I've_ _been_ _dreaming_ _of_."

"I was just thinking what a waste my life's been. I mean, so I was an actress, so what? I never really did anything for anybody."

I hadn't expected to be so frank, but being in his presence caused the words to just tumble out of me before I could think too much about them. My heart was really pounding now. I felt as though I could bare my entire soul to him.

"Well, you entertained people," he said.

"Oh, that was just for the moment."

It was strange, on the one hand, honestly expressing the terrible feelings I'd been having about my life to him, and on the other, a secret well of gladness bubbling with growing intensity within me at the notion of sitting in the moonlight alone with him, sharing some of my final hours.

I launched into a monologue composed right off the top of my head, trying my best to convey to him what I learned from a role I had as a nurse to Ben Casey's doctor, how important and impactful those jobs were, those who helped and saved people's lives.

"You're right, Ginger. That's what's important. Saving people."

He surprised me then, when his expression changed. "I should never have become a teacher," he said ruefully. "I should have gone on with my work in science. You know, when I was in college, we were working on a vision problem encountered by Navy patrol fliers after they had spent several hours scanning the ocean and-"

He stopped, and his expression changed again. His whole face seemed to light up as if he had just witnessed a miracle.

"Wait- that's it!"

I jumped a little. "What?!"

But he only exclaimed "What a fool I've been! This is great!"

He practically jumped to his feet, and dashed off to somewhere, leaving me sitting with a pounding heart and disappointment at our heart-to-heart ending so abruptly.

It had been surprising to me to hear that he, the ever-confident Professor who always knew what to do, had doubted himself, too. When I had looked into his eyes as he'd been speaking, I felt as if I had had my first look into his soul, just as I'd wanted to open up mine to him.

A tiny smile tugged at half of my mouth. I knew without a doubt now, that I was truly in love with Professor Roy Hinkley. Not any kind of stupid, shallow affair like I'd had before, not a simple infatuation. I was _truly_ in _love_.

Maybe for the first time in my life. _Too bad I had found that out right as I'm going to die, _I thought.

But of course, we were perfectly fine the following day- despite the failure of the Professor's idea, the one that had cut off our conversation, to make a giant mirror to reflect light onto the passing Navy patrol plane- so I was alive to keep the memory of that evening with me. I also found that I was, actually, grateful that I was an actress, because if keeping my feelings from being obvious wasn't easy, I couldn't imagine how difficult it would have been if I weren't one!

I had to keep walking, keep my eyes straight ahead, if he were leading me somewhere, and he placed his hand on my bare forearm; when he gave me explicit instructions to do something, I had to maintain eye contact, even if I was worried that my face might start burning up.

But all in all, I did my job well, and our castaway lives continued day by day, misadventure after misadventure, none of them caused by relationship drama between me or the Professor... or Mary Ann, whom, it often seemed to my jealous eyes, he seemed to like very much. (In fact, sometimes I thought we could do just fine without her old cooking skills, after all!) He was equally kind to all of us, though, even Gilligan.

I would watch the Professor toiling away on some new invention down on the beach, or sweating as he and the Skipper brought up a heavy yoke of water buckets, and my heart would pound, fierce with admiration. I wondered: had I ever known a man like this?

His common sense for the common good, always looking out for the others, always ready to put himself in danger, sometimes mortal danger, so someone else wouldn't have to- even though, I would think, he was invaluable to us. _I_ should have been the one to take all of the risks, because, very cliché, but also quite true: we needed him like we needed water to survive on the island.

Especially me.

And suddenly, there came a day when, out of the blue, just like that- I had an outlet for my inner passions.

I was already _delighted_ when trunks of _antique_ _movie equipment _washed up ashore, _especially _as it was a part of a hauntingly romantic Hollywood tragedy. I began trying on the costumes right away; the glamorous wigs and furs and gowns, all in shockingly good condition. The wooden crate must have been the very _best_ quality; not a single drop of water or wisp of air had touched those clothes in decades.

Somehow, we ended up with some convoluted scheme to use the supplies to make a film explaining our predicament and asking for help. It was old equipment, so that meant no color, and no sound. I didn't mind; like Mrs. Howell, I loved old-fashioned silent films just as much as new ones.

The filming went along as smoothly as it could with Gilligan involved, and our director, Mr. Howell, spent a lot of time hollering at him down at the beach while they tried to film the first scene: the aftermath of the _Minnow _shipwreck.

And then it was time for my scene.

Which only involved one other person...

The Professor.

I had laughed when I had first seen the Skipper and Gilligan in the feature-emphasizing makeup, and I had fully steeled myself for when I had to see the Professor wearing it. Mr. Howell called him... and I didn't laugh... instead my stomach tightened up.

What was comical on Gilligan's funny little face and the Skipper's round one, was jarringly _nice_ on the Professor's. His eyebrows darkened, the blue of his eyes brighter for the subtle black around them, his lips faintly reddened to bring out their expressive shape... he looked so sensual and intense, I didn't know if I could meet his gaze.

But it felt so good, refreshing down to my bones, to act again, and it came easily, despite the Professor, whose skills turned out to be more like those of a wooden stage puppet than a human performer. Mr. Howell kept interrupting to shout at us- him- but then...

We were again paused by Mr. Howell; he didn't like how stiff the Professor's arms were around me, that wasn't good enough, this and that. It needed a touch more realism... My heart deafening in my ears, my mind whirring, that time, I cautiously opened the floodgates to my passions, _just_ a crack enough for an accurate portrayal.

When our mouths connected, I thought I would explode. I could feel his strong arms around my back, and I was so intent on not keeling over onto the table with him that my mind was practically somewhere else, removed from my body, noting how his movements seemed very exaggerated and trying to match them.

For all I knew we had been locked into some loop outside of the time-space continuum, where I couldn't tell if time was passing slower or quicker or if it was even passing at all. I refused to let my mind experience what my body was relaying back to it. I _forced_ their segregation because I wasn't entirely sure what would happen if I let myself feel... and I needed to stay in-character at all times when the camera was rolling...

...Even if I had never had such a difficult time following my acting principles in my _life_. Just when I was beginning to wonder if the hollow whooshing sound that filled my head meant that I had gone utterly insane, we stopped. My breath heaving, blinking rapidly, I may as well have just surfaced from the deep. I smiled toward Mr. Howell, nodding at his praises, while meanwhile my mind scrambled to set itself back to normal.

I managed to make it through the rest of the shoot just fine. The kiss hadn't been real enough to truly move me, it instead had been an acting challenge of inspiring proportions, and all day I harbored a secret pleasure that I had succeeded at it.

When the film was completed, we held a screening on the beach with the old projector. Our scenes looked ridiculous, and of course, due to Gilligan, they had been flipped around or spliced strangely and hence looked all the sillier. It was all very funny, but it was difficult to keep my eyes on the screen during our scene, and I was grateful for the dark that hid the redness I could feel on my cheeks.

With the subtlest, smallest motions I could manage, I shifted my head enough to steal a glance at the Professor in back, where he was running the projector. Desperately curious to see his reaction, I tried to make out the expression on his face, but the distance and the flickering shadows hid it too well.

Lying in bed that night, I thought of him, I thought of how close I had been to him, we had kissed... and it hadn't meant anything. My fingers squeezed the pillow. I wondered if I would ever get another chance like that.

In the coming days, I wondered that quite often. I wondered if he would ever know about me and my feelings. I supposed that if he weren't always so preoccupied trying to solve the predicament of being stranded on a deserted island, and I hadn't been an actress, it probably would have been far easier. And even if he did find out, who was to say that he would feel the same?

Then again, who was to say that he wouldn't... or maybe... _didn't_, already? My heart needed to find out... and as it turned out, I didn't have to wait very long at all for another chance.

I was deep in the jungle one day, alone and in privacy so I could brush up on my argument-scene-skills, an acting muscle I felt hadn't been exercised in a long time, when Gilligan found me and told me that we were to be rescued by Erika Tiffany-Smith. Erika Tiffany-Smith, the fabulously wealthy socialite!

I was thrilled. I admired that lady quite a bit, and I couldn't wait to meet her. She was in search of a little deserted island to build a resort hotel, and I was sure she was just as shocked to see us as we were to see her.

As I explained to the Skipper on my way to see her, included in the many things and places she owned were not just one but _several_ movie studios, and I didn't intend to let the miracle chance to get in the good books with _that_ slip through my fingers. I changed my mind about going to see Mrs. Tiffany-Smith right away and decided instead to return to my hut and primp myself up first.

As it turned out, there was one castaway in particular that caught her eye. And it wasn't me.

The Professor.

So much so that, later on, Mary Ann came breezing into our hut, to tell me with a giant, excited smile that Mrs. Tiffany-Smith had announced that not only had she and the Professor had fallen in love at first sight.

Once she had gone, I sat staring at my face with half the makeup removed for nearly a full minute. Then, slowly, I stood up, and slid into my bed, where I could cover myself up and pretend that it was dream. I didn't want to cry, but I began to, and I hated my childish weakness with every muted sniffle I took, every "it's not fair" that I wept... but I couldn't help it. And it _wasn't_. It may have been childish but it was also simply the truth: it _wasn't_ fair.

Once I had sobbed enough to think more clearly, I became desperately nervous of being caught, so I _made_ myself recover as quickly as I could, seated at my vanity mirror. "Lord, if you've never wanted to help me before, please, just now- please don't let anyone come in until I look my regular self again..."

An hour had passed since I had stopped crying; my prayer answered, before a visitor showed up. I saw their reflection in my mirror, and a funny thing happened then. I saw that it was actually him, it was the Professor, closing the door behind him, and the very second that I registered that it was him- I knew that, in order to look normal, I had to respond right away. It was too quick to say that I had an idea, but maybe more the instinct of an idea, and I acted on it right away.

Squarely on the opposite side of the reality, I acted as if it were that underhanded little weasel -Smith I had been hoping to see coming in. I started to say her name, turning around with an excited smile pasted on my face and then faltering it, saying instead, "Oh, it's you."

It was almost painful for me to have done, but I wanted to start off whatever conversation we were going to have totally free of worries about the visibility of my hurting.

My heart was pounding already; what could he have come to my hut for, shut the door to leave he and I in privacy?

Advice. At first, I felt as if I'd been punched in the stomach all over again: of course he would want to discuss _her_! But I didn't suffer long because, miracle of all miracles, out of the blue, idea struck me again. It swept over my body head to toes, changed my whole perspective of that moment. I rapidly gathered the courage to ask him if he'd ever been in love in the past, something I had been deathly curious about for a while now, but had never been gutsy enough to _actually_ bring up the subject.

Despite myself I wanted to giggle at his response, his "kissing and hugging, hugging and kissing" as he got up and paced toward the bed. He wasn't a wolf, apparently, which was fine with me, I had run with _those_ enough for one lifetime.

"Professor," I began, "school is now open."

"School?"

I stood up straight and impressive, sauntering to him. "You've come to the right teacher," I purred, adrenaline rising, "Want a lesson?"

Now it was the cowardly Ginger Grant, tiny but still present sitting in the back, who watched the movie star, the Ginger Grant who could do anything, give a lesson in romance to a man she couldn't so much as say hello to without her innards tying in a knot. I instructed him to put his arms around me. He did so as if he were holding a rather tall sack of potatoes. I told him to hold me tighter, and he merely relaxed his arms a bit.

"You can hold me tighter- I won't break," I promised with hooded eyes.

"I- I don't want to crush your dress," he replied uncertainly, his eyes flitting from his arms back to my face, where, despite how nervous _he _was, if the truth had been present he would have seen a mirror of his own expression.

I was almost light-headed; I said the first little word that popped into my mouth."Try."

His arms tightened around my waist, pressing me more firmly to his body, and I whispered breathlessly, "Now.. kiss me."

I closed my eyes, not daring to think. There was warmth by my cheek. His lips pressed there, not so chaste as I might have thought, tender enough to produce an endearing smacking sound when he pulled away.

The lingering moisture _burned; _a speck of ember on my face. I only trusted myself to say exactly what was necessary, as I giggled partly at his bashfulness and partly out of a rush of giddy, wild glee. "On the lips!"

He continued to stall, sputtering some other absurd protests which, had it been another man, would have made me want to hit him.

Finally, I closed my eyes again. Our mouths met. I only had time to swallow my gasp before he had pulled away again. I opened my eyes, blinking in confusion.

"How was _that_?" the Professor asked foxily, cocking his head toward me with a hooded gaze of his own. The sheer cuteness helped to keep me in the moment, away from my nerves long enough to come up with a saucy retort.

"Not even good enough to satisfy your mother." I inhaled deeply, attempting to smooth the fraying edges of my nerves. "Professor," I said carefully, silently praying that none of my inner tumult was showing through my confident display, that I didn't appear any other way than how I _wanted _to appear, as I watched him sit down on the table, "I don't think you're ready for this-"

"_-as a matter of fact I'm not entirely certain that I am, either-"_

"-but it's for your own good." Without giving myself a moment to hesitate, I stepped swiftly up to the table, reached out to wrap my arms around him, and in the accompanying silence I realized a number of things. I realized that what I was trying to do was to show the Professor how to be passionate... passionate for someone else. I realized that this crumb of time was in all likelihood my final chance for some, any, kind of romance between us, before _Miss_ Tiffany-Smith swooped in to claim her latest prize, and the rest of us returned to our everyday existences.

I also realized that the feel of him in my arms had finally smashed a gaping hole through the walls of caution with which I had so carefully dammed the ocean that churned and tossed, unrequited, at my core, and these realizations brought a throbbing urgency to the waters which flooded me, so that I dipped him down faster, harsher than I had intended to. I could see how much I had startled him, feel it in the arm that flew to grip my waist, but I was in a daze for having his face so close to mine, pausing to savor the sight of his parted lips for a heartbeat longer before I closed my eyes, and pressed my mouth to his.

He gasped, quick and shuddering, and for one panicked moment I thought he would pull away. Instead, I felt his head tilt further toward mine, so that his lips pressed back, timid and unsure at first, his other arm looping around my shoulder. I had yearned so powerfully for this, to lavish my passion on him... and feel him returning it, that I could scarcely believe it wasn't just happening in my mind. I cradled him hungrily to me, relishing the warmth, the weight of his solid body in my arms- proof that I wasn't dreaming. My heated lips caressed his, the very tip of my tongue flicking across his upper lip, and his fingers tightened reflexively in the sequined material at my waist.

Mimicking my motions, his tongue slid carefully over my lower lip, just barely touching, tracing its shape. Every nerve ending there pulsed, white hot, beneath that silken touch... I was caught off-guard by how fiercely it caused my heart to pump, and I knew at once that we had to stop, before it went any further and I lost my rapidly weakening grip on the "lesson."

Gently I released his lips. Reality seemed to trickle back into my perception, like sand filling an hourglass, as I slowly opened my eyes to meet his, the sky blue gaze so close and yet seemed to be seeing something distant and extraordinary, his moistened lips parted in wonder. I had never seen him look at me that way in all the time I'd known him, and my heart thrilled. "That, Professor, is what Mrs. Tiffany-Smith wants," I whispered, breaths heavy in my chest, my fingers brushing over the side of his face. I smirked. Despite my arm beginning to throb, I hadn't yet felt so _truly_ seductive on the island. "What do you think?"

"Uh... v-very interesting, Ginger..." he breathed. His eyes searched mine beneath the golden-brown lashes. "But," he began slowly, "how am I going to get Mrs. Smith to get me into this position?"

Half of my mouth grinned. "Don't be silly."

Normally, I would have laughed. But just then, I couldn't quite bring myself up to it, and I realized that the stirrings of desire had awakened in me, furthered by the sound of his lowered voice, his breath warm on my face, my lower lip still burning from the touch of his tongue, all while my bed was right there behind us... All I wanted was to lean over and close the gap between us again, bury my fingers in his hair that smelled of coconut, feel my nerves set ablaze...

... but he thought it was a lesson. It may have seemed perfect- here we were, alone together, embracing, kissing- but the reality was that he had only come to my hut on account of someone else... someone whom he may have been thinking of even I as kissed him. Hearing him speak that name had served as a splash of cold water to bring me back to my senses.

"...J-just wait till Mrs. Smith gets a taste of that," I said, louder than I meant to, patting his back, "You'll really knock her socks off, Professor."

I straightened up, and he removed his arms from around me. I tried to ignore the little lurch my heart gave at the loss while I withdrew my own reddened arm from his body.

"We'll see," he said hopefully as he hopped neatly off of the table to his feet. His back was to me, and when he turned, he was smiling. "Thanks a lot for the lesson, Ginger."

He held out his hand. I took it, pasted the seductive smirk on again, and said, "Anytime, Professor."

As I watched him leave my hut, I wanted to lie down and cry again. I could already feel the lump rising in my throat...

...but in the end my grief was ill-spent. Mrs. Tiffany-Smith ended up leaving our island by herself- and as if that weren't great enough, it was the Professor, not her, who decided that a relationship wasn't going to work out.

I still stayed in my hut for a while even after I heard about it, because I was too afraid someone would see how about I was- especially the Professor himself. I did indulge in a "Hooray" when I was sure there was no one around, though I felt bad about it as soon as I'd uttered it.

But again, I needn't have. The Professor didn't really seem all that upset at all at the loss of Mrs. Tiffany-Smith, getting right back to the usual flow of things on the island, trying to work out how to get home. Although, I wondered if it were possible that he was hiding it, same as I was hiding.

The thought made me both worried about my own chances and sorry for him, so I tried to observe him more closely, even taking up the chance to spy on him alone when I got it, but I couldn't find any evidence that suggested he was upset over Mrs. Tiffany-Smith. Eventually, I let the matter go.

It seemed that the path to Dr. Roy Hinkley's heart was wide open again. I only wished I could be blessed with the exact knowledge of how to traverse it. Never did I think I'd see the day when I, Ginger Grant, was stuck on getting a man. My specialty. But that went to show how special, how unlike any other man Dr. Hinkley was. He was the first man- ever- to give me a run for my money.

But as life went on on the island, there were more times when I felt the chemistry between us, fizzling and snapping, almost ready to come to the surface. Sometimes I like to think I've gotten to him. I do wonder what will come first- finally hearing his admittance of feelings for me or finally getting to go home.

There certainly have been plenty of opportunities, because for a deserted island in the middle of nowhere we sure get a lot of action here. If only we hadn't managed to botch every single one up. We never give up trying, though. It seems pretty likely that we could get home any day, whether its by making use of whatever unexpected blessing comes next, or purely our own ingenuity.

Ooh, I can see it now, we''ll finally set foot back on real _land_, first Gilligan, leaping and whooping, and the Skipper behind him trying to hold on to his Captain's hat...

...and then my and the Professor's feet will touch the sand at the same time, breeze ruffling our hair, our hands clasped together, ready to start our new lives together... !

* * *

_Author's Notes: _

I hope you enjoyed the story! I have a lot of other projects going right now, but I just recently got into watching "Gilligan's Island," and I just _had_ to write something for it- especially for Ginger and the Professor.

I realize that Ginger's voice might sound out-of-character a bit, (unless you don't think so) but what I wanted to depict in this story was a stream of "reflections," I wanted to depict Ginger's deepest inner thoughts that she- or anyone- doesn't really express day-to-day. I also decided to end it on an ambiguous note since I wanted the story's universe to be as within-canon as possible, and to me, the canon of the show is ambiguous at the end since we never got to see what the creators had in mind for the next season.

Thank you so much for reading, and please review if you're compelled to!


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